Left
by Zooie
Summary: The kyuubi attack changed everyone's lives, some for the better and some for the worse. Iruka was one of the latter.


**Disclaimer**: Naruto is not mine.

**Warnings**: Grim and kinda gruesome.

**Left**

It was dark, it was late, it was long past Iruka's bedtime and he had left his bed, left his house, left his yard because his parents had left him alone in the late, dark night. "Stay here," they'd said, as the eastern edge of town slowly became a shrieking battlefield of souls. "We love you. Stay where it's safe," they'd told him and then they'd gone. But home wasn't safe. Mother and Father were where it was safe and so Iruka had thrown on his clothes and pulled on his shoes and ghosted after them across the town and through the streets. He followed them past dead nin and dying nin and soon-to-be-dead nin. His parents didn't notice because they thought he was where he was safe, and he was.

He followed them as they sprinted through the trees and the noise and the shadows that fell thick even in the night. Iruka's father was pulling out his scrolls and his mother was forming seals and it was all he could do to keep up with them. He hadn't brought his kunai, hadn't brought his shuriken, hadn't brought anything to keep himself safe because he'd never needed those things. But the noises got louder and the darkness seemed darker and Iruka began to wish he'd brought a weapon so he could protect his parents from an unnamed threat that he couldn't see. There was chakra flaring wildly through the trees and he wondered if the knock at the door had really woken him after all.

The forest burned with life and death and Iruka had to stop to clear his senses. He rubbed at his face, his tears washing absolutely nothing clean, and when he opened his eyes his parents were too far away. He started after them, a panicked flight through the shattering chaos, and just when he thought they were gone forever they paused. He called out for them, cried for them to wait, but they didn't hear and then he was tripping. He tripped and he lost them, lost his focus and his path and his breath because his feet had stumbled over a grinning corpse, a body whose legacy was a defiant smirk forever facing the world. Iruka gasped and faltered and stepped over the once-man and tried not to cry because the corpses were everywhere and the night was too thick and he would never find his mother and father. He stood trembling in the killing field, surrounded by blood glistening in the moonlight, a grotesque imitation of the starry sky stretching above.

A sudden, devastating shriek; the battle was very close and Iruka grit his teeth, forcing himself forward once more. He jumped into the trees and ran through the branches, pushing aside leaves and making suicide leaps and adding his own awkward chakra to the fray. It wasn't far, he could make it, they had to be right there and he had to go on or never find them. Suddenly there weren't any branches left to cling to and he dropped down to the soiled forest floor. He had reached live bodies now, nin screaming in bloodlust and fury, fighting an enemy Iruka knew he never wanted to meet. He pushed through them, his white clothing slowly fading to gray with dirt, and reached the front line. He didn't see his parents, couldn't see them; there were too many people, too much dust, too much blood, too much anger and rage and screaming fear. He felt his own fear rising, rising and mixing amongst the fighting and the screams for safety lost. There were too many people and none of them were safe. He wasn't safe and, as an inhuman scream ripped through the air and trees fell like rain with one swipe of a demonic hand, he knew he never had been.

Iruka saw the demon, stared into its hungry, burning eyes, met them head on and _knew_ and then a nin grabbed him by the waist, snatching him back and away. The nin dragged him back towards town, pulling him away from the fire and the death and the bodies. People were still screaming, dying and falling and trying in spite of it all, but the nin forced Iruka away from the turmoil and back towards the village where only the echoes of battle could be heard.

It is twelve years later, and Iruka can still hear them.

**-end-**


End file.
